Afterwards
by betawho
Summary: Rose and the Duplicate Doctor have been left in the Alternate Universe, but is this really the Doctor? Can Rose come to accept him, even love him? Soon it becomes apparent that things may change, but some things stay the same. Love works.


Author's Notes:

After the events at Bad Wolf Bay (Journey's End) I wanted the new Doctor and Rose to have a happy ending. Here's what I think happened Afterwards. [This is just written as it occured to me, so it jumps a bit, but it's perfectly readable. Enjoy.]

AFTERWARDS

He was collared for a "what are your intentions toward my daughter" speech from Pete. It had done his heart good to see Pete embrassing being Rose's father. It couldn't have been easy for him to think his daughter was involved with someone 20 times his own age. Even though, in reality, this Pete was even less Rose's father than He was Rose's Doctor.

Human marriage customs were still something of a mystery to the Doctor. There had been so many of them over time. But they all seemed to boil down to one thing, and that is one thing he could give. "I intend to love her, Pete. With everything I am, for just as long as I can."

And with that Pete had had to be content.

In fact, he had loaned them his derigible for their "honeymoon" trip.

—————

When Pete had arrived to pick them up from Bad Wolf Bay, he had been surprised and pleased to see the Doctor. Rose had been the one to explain that this wasn't really the Doctor.

The Doctor had left the explaining to her. Listening to how she explained that he wasn't really the Doctor, but a copy, an offshoot. It had hurt, but not really been surprising. He'd listened and kept his mouth shut, learning how she viewed him. And filing it away to use, when she had calmed down enough to see that he really was the same.

Pete had offered him a place in his house and a job at Torchwood. Both being obvious solutions to what to do with him. The Doctor had agreed, but warned Pete that he wouldn't be the easiest of employees. Pete had laughed. He knew full well that "employee" was not a word that would ever describe this man, be he the same as the other Doctor or not. Besides, he hadn't become a millionaire by trying to stifle genius when he found it.

Pete's home was spacious, the grounds extensive, and Rose's baby brother Tony, now a chubby, huggy one year old, was a delight. On first meeting the Doctor had swooped him into the air and started babbling Venusian nursery rhymes to him. The boy had fallen in love on the spot.

The first two months of his new life on Pete's World were spent travelling. He had a whole new world to explore and, being the Doctor, he couldn't wait. He wanted to see it all now.

Rose had shook her head at him and told him it wasn't that different. But he had grinned hugely at her and protested "But it's the little differences that make it interesting!"

Arrangements had been made for an extensive worldwide tour, travel accomodations courtesy of Pete's personal zeppelin.

____

It wasn't until the fourth morning after they returned (from Bad Wolf Bay) that Rose began to see how much this man really was the Doctor. And strangely, it was a very un-Doctorish scene that brought it home to her.

She found him, on the fourth morning, sitting quietly in the parlor, feet up on an expensive tea table, staring out the window. He was quiet, still, sad.

"What's wrong?" she rushed to his side without even thinking, taking his hand and sitting on the footstool beside him.

He turned to her, his hand gripping hers a little tighter than she expected. "They're all gone."

She blinked at him. "How do you know? The Time Lords may still exist in this universe."

He shook his head. "Not them." He shook that thought off as if it was meaningless. "Sarah Jane, Jack..." He looked back out the window. "Everyone I've ever known."

She saw tears in his eyes. She laid her cheek against his hand. "You've still got me. Besides, it's not so bad." She turned his face toward her. She almost gasped at the depth of lonliness she saw there. A lonliness that she hadn't seen since the early days of their time together. It was so easy to forget that he was centuries old. That her pathetic little life would pass in a flash for him.

But not anymore. She took his face in her hands and kissed him firmly on the mouth. "It's not so bad. Harriet Jones is still alive here. So is Sarah Jane."

His eyes snatched up. "Sarah?"

She smiled. "Yes. She's still a hotshot investigative reporter. She interviewed me just after dad revealed me to the public as his secret "love child" that he's kept hidden away all these years." She rolled her eyes. "I made sure she was invited to the press conference. She's nice. When she interviewed me and started asking me where I was from I told her the truth. She thought it was a joke. She laughed. She's never heard of you. But she's happy. She's married and has two grown kids."

He smiled at her. It wasn't a completely happy smile. But it was a smile. "Besides," she continued. " Now you don't have to leave anybody behind anymore." She straigtened his collar. "You're not going to outlive us anymore. Tony will probably attend your funeral."

He laughed. "Thanks," he said with asperity. "That makes me feel better."

"And so it should." She looked down the long length of him draped over the chair and the tea table. "You do realize you're sitting here in your robe and pajama's don't you?"

"Just like you first met me."

"Just like I first met you." She grabbed his lapels and jerked him up out of the chair and kissed him full on the mouth, unfortunately his feet had still been up on the table and got tangled. They fell hard to the parlor floor with a grunt.

She laughed, and looked up into twinkling brown eyes. Beautiful, beloved, twinkling brown eyes.

She pulled him down and kissed him again. He didn't resist, didn't demure, instead she felt his long arms slide up around her back and draw her tight.

One thing was the same. He still had that respiratory bypass system. She broke the kiss, panting hard. She gave him a quick nip on the lip then got up and hauled him to his feet. "Come on. Get dressed. We've got a world to explore."

Africa, Australia, Belize, Brazil ... For some reason the Doctor had decided to see the whole world in alphabetical order. However, the concept of an efficient flight plan seemed to go right over his head.

Rose stood back in the zeppelin flight deck and just watched as the Doctor argued times and distances, velocities, wind sheer, gulf streams, mass to lift ratios and flight plans with the captain. At one point, intent on proving he could get them there faster, she's seen him lean over the control board and reach into his pocket. And freeze.

Her heart stuttered for a moment, he slowly pulled his hand out, empty.

"Still," he said, visibly shaking himself. He leaned forward and started flipping switches, and consulting dials, like he was working the Tardis. He stood back with a satisfied air as the flight computer chittered to itself. "Try that, Captain. I think you'll find we'll not only shave a day off the transit time, but save fuel as well." He turned and took her hand and led her off the bridge, behind them the computer finally caught up with him and pinged out it's final computations. Rose grinned and leaned into his shoulder.

African tribal dances in the Serengeti, striking off the tour path in Australia to find Aboriginal carvings lost for centuries, Carnival in Belize, a hike through the Andes. Anywhere in the world that had anything interesting to offer, he was interested. And he talked to people everywhere. She was suprised to realize he really could speak every language known to man. He didn't need the Tardis translation circuits. Not that that did her any good.

The morning after a refueling stop in Tiawan he woke her up with a present. A pair of earrings. They weren't very pretty, just two dull grey disks the size of the tip of her thumb. He clipped them onto her ears.

"Jambo."

"Good morning. Wait! You just said... but I heard it in English!" She reached up and touched the earrings.

"Translator circuits, I whipped them up this morning."

"But don't you need the Tardis for that?"

"No. They're telepathically routed through me. If I can understand the language, now you can too." He stroked the earring, and her ear. "And they have other uses." An image suddenly popped into her head. An image of how she looked right now, hair sleep-tumbled, oversized T-shirt wrinkled, and beautiful, so very beautiful. And...

"Oh, you think so do you?" she said, as she slipped a hand up his chest. He leaned forward, bracing one hand on the other side of her hip.

"I think it's possible."

"Oh," she pulled him down to her, "all things are possible."

A long time later. "I think I like these earrings."


End file.
